Etikett: Theconversation.com

As the new senior head coach of the England men’s football team, Thomas Tuchel has assumed one of the most intensely scrutinised managerial roles, not only in football, but in all of sport.

Commentary following his appointment suggests that he should expect unprecedented scrutiny. Despite superb credentials, including coaching Chelsea to Champions League victory in 2021, Tuchel’s appointment has raised anew the question of whether English players should be managed by an English manager.

At the press conference announcing his appointment, he apologised (only partly in jest) for holding a German passport. He is the first German to be appointed to the role. Sceptics have voiced concern about whether a “foreign” manager – particularly one from the England team’s fiercest rival – could feel the requisite passion, loyalty and determination for English success. But doubts about his commitment are only the beginning – the role of England manager involves an unenviable footballing dilemma.

The renowned American football coach Vince Lombardi made popular the sporting mantra: “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” On the Lombardian view, performance has no value independent of its outcome. Set aside the mastery of skills, the lessons of winning and losing, forging bonds with teammates and opponents and the simple joy of play – for him, the value of sport lies in winning – and winning alone.

On this view, the clamour for Tuchel’s predecessor, Gareth Southgate, to depart following the 2024 UEFA European Football Championship was misguided. In reaching the final of successive European championships (2020 and 2024) and the semi-final of the World Cup in 2018, Southgate brought English men’s football to its greatest height since the World Cup-winning team of 1966.

His team comfortably outperformed the so-called “golden generation” of David Beckham, Stephen Gerrard, Frank Lampard and Wayne Rooney, which never progressed beyond the quarterfinals of a major tournament, playing for another foreign manager, Sven-Goran Ericksson. Judged by results alone, Southgate was a once in a generation England manager.

Southgate celebrates winning the Uefa Euro 2024 semi-finals against the Netherlands.
Ronald Wittek

However, the English public subscribed to a more demanding philosophy of football: “Winning is essential, but it is not enough.” Despite the team’s success, the public wanted more. They demanded not only victory, but style too.

Southgate’s team played a conservative, defensively-minded brand of football. In Euro 2024, their passing wasn’t fluid and they created few chances on goal. Instead, they relied on a strong defence coupled with rare moments of attacking brilliance from individual players. Despite their success, Southgate became a lightning rod for criticism due to the uninspiring manner of his team’s victories.

A philosophical dilemma

The pursuit of victory in sport would seem, on the face of it, to be a simple proposition – play as well as you can and hope that this suffices to overcome your opponent. But playing to win is often less about playing well and more about ensuring that your opponent plays badly. It is less about executing your strengths and more about stifling the opposition.

In happy circumstances, playing well and playing to win coincide. In such cases, an opponent’s strengths and weaknesses can largely be ignored. Athletes who are comfortably superior to their opposition (think Serena Williams, Simone Biles, or the All Blacks in their pomp) may have the luxury of ignoring their opponents’ performance. Such is their dominance that, if they play well, victory inevitably follows. However, for mere mortals – including the Three Lions – even a good day can be a losing day.

England celebrate after beating Finland in September 2024.
EPA-EFE/Andy Rain

This tension between playing well and playing to win is one that all athletes, of whatever level, must navigate. Tuchel now takes up the challenge of marrying these often opposed ideals – anything but victory is unacceptable and so too is anything but thrilling football.

In contrast to the Lombardian obsession with winning, sport can also be seen as a vehicle for self-expression. Each sport presents athletes with a unique set of obstacles, constraints embedded in the rules coupled with challenges presented by opponents. How we respond to those obstacles can express something about us, both to ourselves and to others.

Sporting competition can serve as a means of self-expression – a blank canvas on which athletes paint. We must decide how much we value sport as an avenue for proving athletic superiority and how much we value sport as an avenue to convey who we are and what we value. At its best, a national team’s style reflects a national footballing philosophy. But honouring our sporting identity may conflict with our desire to win.

Winning at the highest level and playing to express the pure form of our footballing philosophy may be mutually exclusive goals for all but the most dominant teams. Tuchel must grasp both horns of this dilemma while persuading the public of his desire for English success.

If the team’s results are anything but flawless, his commitment to the cause will be questioned. If the team’s style is unpleasing to the eye, he will be accused of misunderstanding England’s footballing identity. Who would envy him the task ahead?

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Toothbrushes and showerheads in American homes are teeming with viruses known as bacteriophages (bacteria eaters), a new study has found. Many of these “phages” – as they’re known for short – have never been identified before.

The researchers, from Northwestern University in Illinois, swabbed 92 showerheads and 36 toothbrushes. They described what they found as “unlike anything we’ve seen before” and “absolutely wild”. But how alarming is this finding? And what should you do to remain safe?

It is increasingly recognised that wherever you look for microbial species (viruses and bacteria) you will probably find them, particularly in damp places where they thrive, such as showerheads and toothbrushes. The fact that bacteria-infecting viruses were found in great numbers on showerheads and toothbrushes should not come as a surprise. Where there are bacteria, there will inevitably be viruses that infect them.

People’s homes are host to a variety of microbial communities, which include bacteria, viruses, fungi and protozoa. And it has been known for over a decade that showerheads and their hoses can harbour various bacterial species. These include ones that can cause ill health, such as mycobacteria, which can cause respiratory infections, Legionella which causes legionnaire’s disease and Pontiac fever, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which can cause ear and eye infections.

Showerheads

These bacteria have been found on showerheads at levels over 100 times those found in tap water.

In showerheads, there will inevitably be viruses that infect the bacteria found on them. And the more species of bacteria there are, the greater the diversity of phages likely to be present.

The presence of a microscopic ecosystem in your showerhead also means every time you shower, you are coating yourself in the showerhead bacteria and their related phage viruses. And this is an infection risk.

To disinfect your showerhead, soak it in vinegar. It has the added benefit of removing any limescale.

Unscrew the showerhead, brush off any soap residue, and place the showerhead in a plastic bag or other container with enough undiluted white vinegar to cover the item. Leave it for up to two hours.

Rinse the showerhead well after taking it out of the vinegar solution, and repeat every month or so, depending on usage.

Toothbrushes

The researchers at Northwestern University also looked at phages inhabiting regularly used toothbrushes. Unsurprisingly, they also found a diversity of phages on the brush heads.

During brushing, toothbrushes come into contact with structures in the mouth (gum, teeth, tongue, cheeks, uvula and palates). And each of these is home to hundreds of species of bacteria and other microbes.

Oral microbes play an important role in keeping the mouth healthy by excluding harmful germs (pathogens), helping digest food, and regulating the working of the heart and immune system.

The bacterial diversity of the mouth and tooth microbiomes will, as the US study found, influence the diversity of phages deposited onto toothbrushes.

The study provides an interesting snapshot of the diversity of the oral micro-ecosystems (bacteria and viruses) that are deposited on toothbrushes but may cause some people to worry that the microbes on their toothbrushes are a potential source of infection.

The toothbrush viruses identified were bacterial, not human viruses so they are not a health concern. However, while toothbrush microbes are not a risk to the toothbrush owner, as the microbes on it are their own, they can cause infections in others if a toothbrush is shared. One person’s harmless oral microbes can be another’s pathogens, leading to illnesses ranging from colds to endocarditis (a life-threatening inflammation of the heart’s inner lining).

Phages explained.

It is a good idea to clean your toothbrush regularly. The NHS advises running it under the hot tap for about 30 seconds, followed by air drying.

Other websites advise soaking toothbrush heads in antibacterial mouthwash or denture cleaners. For electric toothbrushes, you should follow the manufacturer’s cleaning guidance.

The take-home message from the Northwestern study is that we live in a richly microbial world and that interactions with bacteria and other microbes in our homes are an integral part of our human biology. Also, despite many new phage species being discovered, there is no cause for alarm – as long as you follow the advice above and keep your showerhead and toothbrush clean. Läs mer…

The world is gathering in Colombia for the UN biodiversity conference known as Cop16, a biannual pulse-taking of the living planet where actions to protect the natural world are agreed. At its last meeting in 2022, an ambitious roadmap for nature protection was put in place. As part of that Kunming-Montreal global biodiversity framework, the UN set a bold goal to protect 30% of the world’s land and ocean by 2030 – known as “30×30” – which was agreed by 196 countries and bodies such as the European Commission.

A key task in Colombia will be to measure progress, and the ocean is in the spotlight. A new report reveals that growth in marine protected areas – designated nature conservation zones that are protected from one or more harmful or damaging human activities – is far too slow to achieve this target. Analysis by conservation experts shows that protected areas are too scattered and unrepresentative.

Efforts to protect marine life lag far behind conservation on land. When 30×30 was agreed, the world had protected roughly 17% of land and 7.8% of the sea. The sea element was already behind previous targets, set in 2010 by the UN’s Convention on Biological Diversity to reach 17% and 10% protection of land and sea by 2020.

The 30×30 target is based on what scientists say is required to protect marine diversity, unlike the arbitrary 10% target it replaces. This would give a decent chance of meeting basic conservation goals like representing the full spectrum of habitats and species, or sustaining ecosystem services, such as the provision of seafood to eat and clean water for people. The 30×30 target was designed to turbo-charge conservation, end biodiversity loss and begin nature’s recovery. It hasn’t quite worked out that way, at least not yet.

The new report, commissioned by philanthropic initiative the Bloomberg Ocean Fund and developed in partnership with environmental organisations Campaign for Nature, the Marine Conservation Institute and SkyTruth, is sobering. Since 2022, the global ocean protected area network has grown by only 0.5 percentage points to 8.3%, still nearly 2% short of the 10% target that 30×30 replaced. On this trajectory, the world is set to crawl towards just 9.7% by 2030. The world is failing badly and there seems little urgency in the pace of progress.

Some marine protected area designations set fishing restrictions.
Tamil Selvam/Shutterstock

Most marine protected areas (MPA) fail the quality test too. Assessed against a global framework of effectiveness, called the MPA guide, most marine protected areas are insufficiently protected or managed to deliver positive benefits to nature. The report calculates that only 2.8% of the world’s ocean is protected “effectively” according to MPA guide criteria. They include tiny protected areas like the South Arran MPA in Scotland, which was set up in 2014 and monitored by the local community, and the vast and still wild Ascension Island protected area that encloses 172,000 square miles (445,000km²) of the tropical Atlantic.

Even this low figure could overestimate current effectiveness. Reporting against MPA guide criteria is not yet mandatory for countries, so inconsistent definitions of protected areas complicate measurement of progress. And while some countries have declared MPAs as either “highly” or “fully” protected, the report suggests some of these areas aren’t sufficiently funded by governmental or other means to deliver effective management.

Country protected-area networks – that’s the the total composition of all protected areas – are badly imbalanced. In the global north, countries like the US, UK and France have declared large highly and fully protected areas in their overseas territories to boost the coverage of effective MPAs. Meanwhile, in home waters, most MPAs remain subject to destructive and extractive industrial activities such as bottom-trawl fishing or offshore energy. Their headline percentage protection numbers therefore “blue-wash” the reality of ongoing damage and biodiversity loss.

Horse mussel beds can easily be damaged by destructive industrial fishing practices such as bottom trawling.
Nature Picture Library / Alamy Stock Photo

This October, Australia expanded the sub-Antarctic Heard and MacDonald Islands MPA, leading its environment minister to declare that with 52% of Australia’s waters protected, it had far exceeded 30×30. This and other huge offshore protected areas hide the fact that only 15% of coastal seas around the main Australian landmass are protected. Much of it is still open to industrial fishing and oil and gas production.

The 30×30 goal will also be an impossible dream until the world ratifies the UN’s high seas treaty. This was agreed in 2022 to manage and protect the colossal 61% of the ocean (43% of the Earth’s surface) that lies beyond the sovereign waters of any nation. Until that treaty comes into force, there is no agreed legal mechanism to create MPAs there. At present, just 1.4% of international waters are protected, much of them in Antarctica.

The Bloomberg report recommends governments speed up the creation of more marine protected areas. Another new study suggests a further 190,000 MPAs will be needed to reach 30×30, equivalent to 85 new protected areas daily for the rest of this decade.

While numbers and size matter, the world must also stop paying lip service to conservation and deliver real protection for nature, matched with sufficient and durable finance to ensure they work. And the high seas treaty needs urgently ratified, since there otherwise remains a near half-planet sized hole in ambitions for 30×30.

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The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe devalued the ZiG by 43% on 27 September 2024. This weakened the official exchange rate from 13.9 ZiG per US dollar to 24.4 ZiG per US dollar.

The ZiG (Zimbabwe Gold) is the nation’s newest currency and was launched in April 2024.

The unexpected devaluation was prompted by the need to contain resurgent exchange rate pressure which started back in August due to higher food import costs and a slide in mineral export sales. The central bank decided to ease this pressure by lowering the value of the currency instead of burning reserves to keep its value steady at 13.9 ZiG per dollar.

The strain on the ZiG has intensified in the aftermath of the devaluation. It has weakened even further to more than 26 ZiG per dollar as of 18 October. This has raised speculation that it will continue to weaken.

This would have a number of negative consequences. It would keep upward pressure on import prices, hurting households and businesses. If this happened, Zimbabwean households already hit by falling paycheques and savings might cut back further on spending.

The strain on the currency also risks reigniting inflation. The risk comes after monthly inflation ticked up to 1.4% in August and then climbed to 5.8% in September. Resurgent inflation would also increase costs for businesses and threaten to stifle investment. That was on display in 2000-08 and 2019-20 when price instability dampened economic activity and created a costly business environment which discouraged investment.

A further risk factor from currency instability is that it would deter foreign investors worried about the ZiG as a reliable store of value. The prospect of declining business investment, loss of confidence in the ZiG, and anaemic consumption would in turn be a major drag on economic activity. Economic growth in 2024 is expected to slow down to 2% from 5% last year. El Niño-induced drought, lower mining prices, and macroeconomic instability are among the key reasons.

This is the sixth time Zimbabwe’s authorities have attempted to establish a stable national currency in the past 15 years. The history of failed attempts has cast a long shadow on the ZiG. The recent devaluation has not eased concerns about Zimbabwe’s struggles to develop and maintain a domestic currency that can be widely used for transactions and as a store of value on a voluntary basis.

I have long thought the devaluation was inevitable. Authorities must confront the fundamental causes, which are rooted in a loss of faith in the ability of government to manage spending. In particular, its habit of printing money, overspending on its budgets and failing to expand the economy.

Interventions

The ZiG is part of a multicurrency system which allows individuals to use other major currencies including the US dollar, euro, South African rand and pound sterling.

To increase the ZiG’s uptake, authorities imposed a number of measures. The new unit has to be used for paying a portion of company taxes and most government services. Fines are issued to traders unwilling to accept ZiG payments.

Measures like these are not sufficient because they do not consider the real problems hindering success of the Zimbabwe dollar.

The central bank also announced that it aims to slow the ZiG’s decline by imposing currency controls and raising the benchmark policy rate (the rate used to implement its monetary policy) from 20% to 35%. The jump in the cost of borrowing triggered by these measures will further weigh on business investment and consumer spending.

Gains to Zimbabwean exporters from a cheaper ZiG are unlikely to be substantial because of an El Niño-induced drought which has devastated crops in southern Africa. And dollar earnings for Zimbabwe’s mineral exports have been hurt by lower commodity prices. The agriculture and food sector contributes about 17% to GDP and 40% of total export earnings on average, while mining accounts for about 12% of GDP and 80% of total exports.

My worry is that a cheaper ZiG may not juice exports and reduce the trade shortfall of US$1,453 million recorded last year, given the hit to commodity prices and adverse impact of drought on agricultural production. A bigger trade deficit will keep downward pressure on the currency. The weaker ZiG could however boost inbound tourism.

To retain a stable domestic currency, authorities will have to address deeper structural causes rooted in the country’s long history of printing money to pay for government overspending amid slow economic expansion. That means:

slashing the budget while giving greater spending priority to health, education, public infrastructure and other critical investments.
government weaning itself off dependence on printing money to finance fiscal deficits
supporting credible policies for more sustainable and private-sector led growth and policies for capturing more revenue from growth.

Precedents

This is not the first time that the Zimbabwe dollar has been unstable and weak. In the 2000s, printing money to finance government deficit spending produced periods of high inflation amid slow growth, making the currency weak and unstable.

The currency eventually collapsed in 2009 due to hyperinflation and the US dollar became the official currency.

Another local currency (the RTGS dollar) was later introduced in 2019. With the power to print more money restored, inflation rapidly accelerated and surpassed 500% in 2020. This made the new Zimbabwe dollar highly unstable and its value quickly deteriorated.

As a result, the US dollar continued to be the dominant currency used in transactions and as a store of value. Inflation remained elevated until April 2024, when the ZiG was launched as the new national currency. Its value is backed by gold and foreign currency reserves.

At first the move seemed to have tamed inflation. But widespread voluntary use of the ZiG failed to materialise. That’s because people are still wary of the government’s power to print money, which had been the key driver of inflation and currency instability.

What policy makers can do

Authorities must tackle the root causes of the nation’s currency struggles once and for all. Steps that can be taken to resolve longstanding structural factors include:

Re-prioritising public spending by undertaking deep fiscal reforms that will divert more resources towards spending on health, education, public infrastructure and other critical investments needed to boost growth. These reforms should also aim to capture more revenue from growth, for example, through tax reforms.
Implementing reforms to address corruption and improve governance is essential for imposing the discipline necessary to push back against covering fiscal deficits by printing money and for restoring faith in government institutions.
Pursuing credible policies for more sustainable and private-sector led growth. Strong growth expands tax revenues and gives the government more policy space to spend on essential services and critical investment needs.

Devaluation and other measures that have been imposed to support the ZiG are not the solution. Läs mer…

For the past two decades, investing in girls’ schooling has been hailed as a cornerstone of promoting gender equality in sub-Saharan Africa. Between 2016 and 2018 the World Bank Group invested US$3.2 billion in education projects benefiting adolescent girls.

The logic is straightforward. Girls face significant barriers to education, among them poverty, insufficient academic support, adolescent pregnancy, child marriage, and school related gender-based violence. Reducing these barriers can substantially improve their educational outcomes.

But is this approach – investing in girls’ education – fair to boys, and enough to make a meaningful impact on girls’ lives in the long term? Having studied the relationship between interventions and the way people’s lives develop in adverse contexts, we argue that the answer is no on both counts.

We explain this view in a recent paper. In it we compare the different effects of directing development assistance: improving girls’ school enrolment, prioritising schooling for both girls and boys, and addressing barriers to gender equality throughout life.

We used publicly available data for 136 low- and middle-income countries, including those in sub-Saharan Africa. We calculated the female-to-male ratio for important education indicators in each country to show where girls are ahead, on par or behind boys.

Our findings suggest that the current focus on girls’ schooling may both unintentionally disadvantage boys and be a relatively inefficient means of advancing gender equality.

Girls’ and boys’ education in sub-Saharan Africa

We focused on two indicators to assess the current state of girls’ and boys’ education in the region:

Harmonised learning outcomes measure learning and progress based on the results from seven different types of tests combined and made comparable among children attending school. They reflect the environmental inputs into learning and achievement, such as school quality. Completing secondary school, meanwhile, has been shown to increase a person’s potential for future development, opportunities for employment and higher education.

In most countries in sub-Saharan Africa, girls are behind boys on secondary school completion. The average completion rate for boys is 30%. For girls it is just 24%. In southern Africa specifically, girls have higher completion rates than boys. Figure 1 shows where girls are ahead or behind on this indicator.

Figure 1: Secondary school completion.
Author provided (no reuse)

In sub-Saharan Africa, the average harmonised learning outcomes score for boys is 301; it is 303 for girls. Our results show that, for most countries in the region, girls are achieving roughly equal scores to their male peers.

Figure 2: Harmonised learning outcomes.
Author provided (no reuse)

This suggests that gender gaps in education are not as pronounced as is often portrayed.

Firstly, although school completion rates are higher for boys, this gap is small, and overall completion rates remain low for both genders.

Secondly, where boys are averaging higher levels of completed schooling, it is not due to better academic performance. Once enrolled, girls in the region tend to keep up with boys in school completion and academic performance.

Rather than asking who is ahead, it’s more important to note that neither boys nor girls are doing well. Our results show that educational outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa – including school performance and completion – are alarmingly poor for both girls and boys.

So, if all children in the region are clearly in need of support, why target education interventions at girls alone?

Large disparities in later life

The key to gender equality lies in ensuring girls and boys, and men and women, have the same opportunities to reach their potential from early life, through late childhood and adolescence, into adulthood.

Research emphasises that human development does not hinge on any single factor such as schooling. Rather, it depends on capabilities built throughout life.

In early childhood, proper nutrition, among other things, is crucial for developing a child’s basic physical and cognitive capabilities. These early investments protect the potential for human development.

During childhood and adolescence, factors like quality schooling and social support allow young people to realise that potential.

Finally, in adulthood, social norms and job opportunities determine how fully a person can use their realised potential.

Our findings suggest that, on average, in low- and middle-income countries the development potential of girls and young women is protected and realised better than it is for boys and young men. But later in life, women don’t have as many opportunities as men to use that potential.

This implies that initiatives focused on girls’ schooling are likely not the most effective means of promoting girls’ development or reducing gender gaps.

Large disparities emerge later in girls’ lives. For example, our findings show that women earn less than men in almost every country in sub-Saharan Africa. These results reflect how patriarchal norms, particularly the unequal burden of housework and childcare, tend to push women into lower-paid informal or part-time work. Even when similarly qualified and in comparable positions, women typically earn less than men.

Figure 3: Adult earnings.
Author provided (no reuse)

These findings, when considered in the context of the current state of education in the region, challenge the idea that focusing solely on girls’ education is enough to promote their lifelong development or meaningfully reduce gender inequalities.

The argument that boys should not receive the same support as girls is weak.

How to promote greater gender equality in sub-Saharan Africa

Targeted interventions are likely to have the greatest impact where girls and women face the greatest barriers: in using their potential. That means, for example:

Social protection policies, including childcare and reproductive health services, can ease women’s caregiving burden and give them the time and agency to fully participate in politics, the economy and society.

There are also opportunities beyond government, where support for trade unions, for instance, has been shown to help narrow gender wage gaps.

Addressing gender inequality requires a life-course approach. It should involve quality education for both genders, and tackling the policies, practices and social norms that marginalise women and girls, especially in the later stages of their lives.

Sara Naicker, Jere Behrman and Linda Richter contributed to the research this article is based on. Dhyan Saravanja contributed to this article. Läs mer…

Lagos is Nigeria’s economic powerhouse, but it has some of the worst slums in the country.

Lagos slums are characterised by high levels of poverty – the state of not having enough resources to meet basic needs for living, such as food, water, shelter, healthcare and education.

Poverty is multidimensional. It is not only about money. Yet poverty in Lagos slums has often been studied using traditional methods that focus mostly on income thresholds. A person is considered poor if their income falls below a certain level. This approach captures financial hardship. But it misses other aspects of poverty, such as lack of access to education, healthcare, clean water and decent living conditions.

Measuring poverty requires a multidimensional approach, not simply an income approach. Multidimensional poverty means looking at all the aspects of deprivation to get a fuller picture of what it means to live in poverty. It helps policymakers and researchers understand that even with some income, a person may still be struggling because they don’t have other essential services.

In a study of poverty in the Lagos State slums, two other development economists and I used a mathematical framework to model multidimensional poverty. We used what is known as the fuzzy set approach. This was developed in the 1990s as an alternative to purely monetary measures of poverty.

The traditional monetary approach often classifies people as either “poor” or “not poor” based on specific cut-off points. In reality, poverty exists on a spectrum, and people can experience different levels of deprivation across various aspects of their lives. The fuzzy set approach accounts for this by assigning degrees of membership to different poverty indicators.

We found considerable disparities in poverty, based on a multidimensional index, across slums in Lagos State. Our insights will enable economists and policymakers to see the different ways people in slums are deprived. In turn this should help them understand how to make their lives better in a more targeted and effective way.

Background and methodological approach

Our study focused on five big slums that lie close to the coastal line in Lagos state. These are among the slums the World Bank has identified for upgrading as part of a US$200 million loan project to improve drainage and solid waste management.

We chose 400 respondents from the five slums: Makoko, Iwaya, Ilaje, Ijora Badia and Amukoko.

According to Avijit Hazra and Nithya J Gogtay, researchers in bio-statistics and research methodology, a minimum of 384 samples is appropriate for a large population size. Nevertheless, the selected sample for this study limits the ability to generalise the findings to other slums, especially those with different characteristics.

Findings

The multidimensional poverty index was highest in Makoko and Iwaya. These scores indicate severe poverty, as they are above the threshold of 0.50.

In contrast, Amukoko had the lowest multidimensional poverty index, showing relatively less severe deprivation across indicators.

Makoko and Iwaya are particularly deprived in areas like schooling, sanitation and nutrition. This explains their higher poverty levels compared to other communities.

Makoko’s location along the coast, with its makeshift housing and poor infrastructure, adds to its vulnerability. Iwaya shares similar challenges in education and health services. These factors make both areas more deprived than other slums.

Of the three broad poverty dimensions measured, education emerged with the highest deprivation across all communities. This highlighted the limited formal education among residents.

Specifically, Makoko and Iwaya showed the highest deprivation in schooling. Despite some improvements, particularly in child enrolment, these communities are still marked by severe deprivation.

The second dimension exhibiting severe deprivation was living standards. There were variations across different slums. Makoko and Iwaya had higher sanitation challenges.

The third dimension in the severe deprivation category was health. Indicators included mortality and nutrition. They were high across many slums, contributing significantly to their multidimensional poverty indexes.

Other communities, such as Amukoko (0.0312), showed better sanitation outcomes. On the other hand, electricity, flooring and cooking fuel indicators generally showed lower levels of deprivation, with most slums scoring around or below 0.03 in these categories.

The prevalence of both serious and minor illnesses, coupled with insufficient medical care, contributed to high mortality rates.

Poor sanitation could also be a factor in health issues. In Makoko and Iwaya, toilet facilities and waste management were poor, with waste often disposed of in waterways.

Despite this, personal hygiene practices such as using clean water, soap and regular brushing were prevalent. This helped keep the sanitation index relatively low compared with other factors affecting health.

Other slums had relatively better-organised waste collection systems and generally improved sanitation practices.

What needs to be done

Policymakers should prioritise education-focused initiatives. This should include improving access to quality schools, providing scholarships and setting up adult literacy programmes.

The study also highlights challenges related to sanitation, especially in Makoko and Iwaya. There is a need for improved infrastructure in these areas, such as better sanitation facilities, waste management systems and access to clean water.

Policies should focus on upgrading sanitation services to reduce health risks and improve living conditions.

But the differences in poverty index across slums indicate varying levels of deprivation, suggesting that a one-size-fits-all approach will not be effective.

Coastal slums like Makoko and Iwaya require more intensive interventions compared to slums not directly on coastal lines such as Amukoko.

Policymakers should focus resources where they are most needed to have the greatest impact.

Slums like Ilaje and Ijora Badia are close to the threshold of severe poverty. Policymakers need to take proactive measures to prevent these communities from falling into severe deprivation.

Lastly, it is important to use data to identify priority areas and develop targeted interventions aimed at improving the quality of life for slum dwellers.

Instead of relying on generalised approaches, the insights from this study can facilitate the design of specific policies that address the distinct needs of each community. Läs mer…

The 2024 election is rife with controversy, from the politics of the campaigns to the politics surrounding the administration of elections. Accusations of wrongdoing and ineptitude continue to plague election officials, despite their explanations of legal compliance and process.

This is not new. During the 2016 election season, there was a growing narrative in the media and elsewhere that U.S. elections were poorly run. These accusations came from the left and the right, with concerns ranging from voter suppression to rigged machines.

My colleagues and I have been studying election administration intensely for many years. When these accusations were made, they struck us as both odd and incorrect. We traveled around the country to visit election offices. We did surveys, we interviewed people, we ran focus groups, we toured election offices.

In 2020, my colleague Kathleen Hale and I published a book on innovation in election administration. Among our conclusions: U.S. elections are not broken, and while fragmented and sometimes confusing, the system is functioning well, despite myriad pressures on it.

The 2020 election continued to underscore that American election administration is strong across the country, despite the narrative from some losing candidates that there was widespread fraud and conspiracy.

I continue to interact with election officials on a regular basis through meetings, conversations, classes I teach and election observations. While there are normal errors and mistakes that will always happen, this year’s presidential election also continues to demonstrate that the people running our elections are professionals engaging in neutral administration, upholding the law as well as important public administration principles of transparency, accountability, accuracy, integrity and widespread access for eligible voters.

These people are doing this work despite an increasingly complicated and threatening environment for election officials.

Elections happen almost every day

There are approximately 8,000 election jurisdictions across the country. For the most part, elections are run locally by community members who work for their county or city government. Some election officials are appointed, some elected, and some are career civil service employees. During the voting period, there are thousands and thousands of volunteer poll workers who are trained to support the process.

These offices work closely with other county and city government offices. Their employees are trained on standard operating procedures to ensure ballot security and electoral integrity, and they work closely with state election offices to ensure standard application of federal and state laws. In some states, such as Colorado and Ohio, they have professional associations to enhance their coordination and work. And there are national professional and training programs to further enhance the field.

Despite the fact that most people think elections are held every other year, when you take into account state, local and special elections and the steps involved in preparation, early and absentee voting, election day voting and canvas and certification, there is an election being run somewhere in America almost every day.

Working in elections is uniquely challenging. Deadlines are fixed, budgets are comparatively small in most places, and perfection is expected at all times. For the past two presidential election cycles, election officials in some jurisdictions faced almost constant accusations of incompetence or fraud. Accusers are rarely able to provide actual evidence.

There are excellent examples around the country of good election administration in the face of many challenges and accusations of wrongdoing.

‘Relentless … barrage of falsehoods’

Consider Wesley Wilcox, supervisor of elections in Marion County, Florida. Wilcox has been a dedicated election official for decades, honored by his colleagues across the country when they elected him to the Election Center Hall of Fame in 2023. He is an elected Republican and vocal about his support of his party.

But since 2020, Wilcox and his colleagues have been a constant target of accusations of wrongdoing, which he told a 2022 U.S. Senate committee hearing constituted a “relentless and unprecedented barrage of falsehoods.” These baseless accusations came despite the fact that Wilcox’s office was involved in the investigation of a woman who was charged with actual wrongdoing: substantiated voter fraud.

Another example is Mary Hall, an auditor in Thurston County, Washington. Hall has been recognized by the state of Washington and her colleagues for her strong professionalism for decades. She heads a robust office and staff who work to communicate to voters to ensure community trust in their processes and outcomes.

Despite that, groups in the area have organized to challenge voter registrations of people who have done no wrong, causing extra work for Hall’s office.

There are legitimate reasons that voter rolls are not perfect, and the presence of people on a voter roll who have moved and registered elsewhere is not evidence of fraud. And while such double registration is not illegal, voting in multiple places is. In the face of all of this, Hall continues to respectfully respond to their accusations and criticisms.

In 2023, her office was one of five nationally to have received envelopes with white powder in them, which turned out to be fentanyl in some cases.

“I used to be very proud of my position and telling people what I did for a living. And I don’t do that anymore, because you never know what reaction you’re going to receive from the people on the other end,” Hall told “PBS NewsHour” in November 2023.

Election Day precinct officials receive training at Wake County Board of Elections headquarters on Sept. 26, 2024, in Raleigh, N.C.
Allison Joyce/Getty Images

‘Years of unsubstantiated personal attacks’

Other than sowing confusion and public distrust, these attacks and accusations have real-life implications for the lives of the people running elections.

One of the hardest for me to watch has been Cathy Darling Allen’s resignation from the profession.

Darling Allen, the former chief election official for California’s Shasta County, is widely regarded among her peers as having the highest levels of professionalism, integrity and honesty. In 2024, Darling Allen was one of five election officials in the country whom the American Bar Association awarded its Unsung Heroes of Democracy Award. That award “recognizes those individuals and organizations who work every day, often behind the scenes or without fanfare, to ensure that our elections are secure and that the democratic ideals set forth in the U.S. Constitution are upheld.”

But years of threats, hate mail, accusations and unsubstantiated personal attacks against her left her physically ill. This stress and resulting health conditions forced her to retire early. A vocal group of county residents alleged that widespread election fraud was happening on her watch and accused her of sedition and treason. In an ironic development, a local news website reported that “Supervisor Patrick Jones, who is the most visible proponent of the claim that election fraud is occurring locally, was himself successfully elected to office in a process overseen by Darling Allen.”

Darling Allen is just one example of dedicated officials who have left the field in recent years because of the rampant, false narrative about election wrongdoing on the part of officials.

Election offices will never have the kinds of resources that those individuals, groups and countries who are attacking the integrity of their offices have.

But these officials nonetheless persist, upholding state and federal laws and professional standards of conduct and producing accurate and timely election results.

A review of the Moritz College of Law case tracker for the 2020 presidential election, which documents important election law cases from around the nation, demonstrates that many of these charges were meritless and that the results of the election were upheld. These results reflect the competence of those election officials.

Other groups, including academics, have been working to neutrally and empirically study these issues, looking at a range of topics, from election performance to best practices, as well as seeking to understand the impacts of the current narrative on the public.

Real electoral mismanagement is investigated, and the people involved face consequences if it is substantiated. Election fraud is a crime. Election officials know this and work tirelessly to ensure timely, fair, secure and accurate elections. Läs mer…

Many Americans had probably never heard of Aurora, Colorado, or Springfield, Ohio, before Donald Trump broadcast his false claims about these cities nationwide late in the 2024 presidential campaign.

First, in September 2024, the Republican presidential nominee claimed in a debate with Kamala Harris that Haitian immigrants in Ohio were stealing and eating other residents’ pets. A month later, at a rally in Aurora, Trump declared that city to be a “war zone” overrun by Venezuelan gangs.

Trump’s false claims went viral, creating chaos for these communities. Reporters rushed in. In Springfield, so did bomb threats.

These stories feel familiar to me as an anthropologist whose work has explored the social dynamics of immigrant destinations in the United States. Springfield and Aurora are only the latest small cities to become sudden flash points in America’s ongoing – and increasingly heated – immigration debate.

Siler City, North Carolina

The small town of Siler City, North Carolina, was used as a backdrop for anti-immigrant political rhetoric a quarter century ago.

In the late 20th century, jobs in Siler City’s local poultry industry became a magnet for Latin American immigrants and their families, leading to rapid demographic change. In 1990, the town was 98% white and African American. By the 2000 census, almost 40% of the town’s 6,000 residents identified as Hispanic or Latino.

This shift caused some racial tension, and in 2000 the notoriously racist politician David Duke headlined an anti-immigrant rally outside City Hall in Siler City.

Duke, who was also a former Louisiana state representative and former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard, railed against Latin American immigrants.

David Duke, speaking at a 1977 press conference, was a racist agitator who built his political career on white supremacy.
Bill Peters/The Denver Post via Getty Images

“Do you understand that immigration will destroy the foundations of this country?” Duke asked. “When you have more diversity, you end up with more division and more conflict,” he said, warning of “extinction” for white people in the U.S.

Duke also railed against school integration. Thirty-five years after desegregation, this remained a favorite complaint of white supremacists.

Only a handful of people, many of them from out of town, showed up to support Duke’s message, carrying signs like “The Melting Pot is Boiling Over.”

In the short term, Duke’s rally exacerbated polarization in Siler City. It also stoked fear and anxiety among foreign-born residents, some of whom believed the local government had endorsed Duke’s message because the rally took place in front of the town hall.

Looking back, however, many Siler City residents see the David Duke incident as a turning point – toward an improvement in ethnic relations in their town.

After Duke’s rally, local politicians spoke out against the divisiveness and hatred. Within a few months, residents offended by the anti-immigrant rally had organized a unity event and cultural festival.

By the time I visited Siler City in 2008 as a graduate research assistant studying new immigration destinations, many locals noted with pride that white supremacists could gain no foothold in town. They said Duke’s racist rally caused neighbors to stop and think, and decide what side they were on.

Today, Siler City has an immigrant community advisory board, and the government actively works to promote integration and social cohesion among residents.

Lewiston, Maine

A similar story unfolded in the working-class Maine city of Lewiston in 2002 after its mayor wrote a public letter about the city’s rising refugee population.

Just over 1,000 Somali refugees had settled in the city in the preceding year, having been displaced by civil war and drought back home.

“This large number of new arrivals cannot continue without negative results for all,” Mayor Laurier Raymond wrote. “Our city is maxed out financially, physically and emotionally.”

He called on Somali people to “pass the word (that) we have been overwhelmed.”

Raymond’s letter got the attention of organized white supremacist groups, who descended on Lewiston, a former sawmill hub of about 35,000 people. In response, local people formed an ad hoc community organization called “Many and One,” and when the hate group World Church of the Creator rallied in Lewiston on Jan. 11, 2003, only 36 people attended. About 4,000 counter-protesters came out to support the Somali community.

A film crew that had showed up to document the conflict ended up telling the story of Lewistonians sending a message of acceptance and unity.

At a 2003 rally on the steps of Lewiston City Hall, activists denounced ‘the climate of intolerance’ created by Mayor Larry Raymond.
Jack Milton/Portland Press Herald via Getty Images

The temporary stresses on Lewiston were real, but in general locals came down on the side of inclusion and welcome. By 2021, Lewiston had one of the country’s highest per capita populations of Muslim residents, and of Somali-Americans.

Twenty years later, the arrival of Somali families has become part of the story Lewiston tells about its history and identity.

Conservative and anti-immigrant messages continue to resonate in the town. Yet many locals, like author Cynthia Anderson, say they are “moved and inspired” by the resilience of their Somali-American neighbors.

Like most Haitians living in Springfield, Somali people did not choose to leave their country. They were displaced, and many were traumatized – yet they built new lives and contributed to the community.

What can this history tell us now?

While there are key differences between Springfield, Aurora, Siler City and Lewiston, these four places also share many attributes.

These are all economically beleaguered cities with higher crime rates than the U.S. average but lower housing costs and more entry-level jobs in manufacturing. Such places are sometimes called “emerging gateway cities,” because they are appealing to immigrant families seeking opportunity.

Yet the same conditions also make these cities attractive to political figures seeking a stage to blame immigrants for the community’s preexisting economic, social and public safety challenges.

As in Siler City and Lewiston, Springfield and Aurora have mainly rejected false political claims and negative messages about their immigrant residents.

In Springfield, residents have organized rallies and a prayer vigil in solidarity with Haitians, and Ohio’s Republican governor defended the city against Trump’s allegations.

The Republican mayor of Aurora said before Trump’s Oct. 11 visit that he hoped “to show him and the nation that Aurora is a considerably safe city – not a city overrun by Venezuelan gangs.”

The 2024 election has brought tense and polarizing times to these towns. But history suggests that Springfield and Aurora will eventually be home to vibrant and integrated immigrant communities.

Once the vitriol fades, Trump’s incendiary misinformation will likely become just a footnote to the larger story of the country’s 21st-century transformation. Läs mer…

The Taliban, an ultraconservative Islamic political group, retook control of Kabul a little more than three years ago, dashing many Afghans’ hopes for a tolerant, democratic government.

As U.S. troops withdrew from Afghanistan days after the Taliban’s resurgence in 2021, hundreds of thousands of Afghans flocked to the Kabul airport, desperate to be evacuated. Among them were Afghans who worked for U.S. military and NATO forces as interpreters and in other roles – in addition to other people who were afraid of the Taliban.

Chaotic and sometimes violent scenes of the poorly planned evacuation captured media attention for weeks, as the U.S. military airlifted nearly 124,000 people out of Afghanistan.

Many of the Afghans who fled their country in 2021 went to Iran, Pakistan and other nearby countries. To offer a lifeline to the Afghans who came to the U.S., the Biden administration announced on Aug. 29, 2021, that evacuated Afghans could legally – but temporarily – stay in the U.S.

As a scholar of civil conflict and refugee migration, I have been following the Afghan evacuation and policy responses in Washington since 2021. While President Joe Biden renewed humanitarian parole for approximately 70,000 Afghans in 2023, these people remain in legal limbo, unable to fully move forward in their lives.

The upcoming election will likely be decisive in resolving Afghans’ legal status or not.

An Afghan couple, including a man who worked as an interpreter for the U.S. military, walk in Charlestown, Mass. in February 2022.
Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images

Understanding humanitarian parole

The U.S. admitted Afghans into the country through what’s called humanitarian parole, a federal program that the president can authorize to give protection to people in other countries facing extreme emergency circumstances.

Humanitarian parole must be renewed by a presidential administration every two years, unlike the U.S. refugee admission policy, which gives foreigners who face legitimate fears of returning home the right to get permanent residency in the U.S.

The Afghan parole program enabled people like Mina Bakhshi – a female rock climber who had no future under the Taliban because of her gender – to enter the U.S. and attend college.

It also helped people like Qasim Rahimi, a journalist in Afghanistan, to flee to safety with his family and settle in Kansas City, Missouri.

About one-third of the Afghan evacuees who came to the U.S. settled in California, Virginia and Texas, while the rest settled in other states.

Yet humanitarian parole is not a permanent solution.

While these Afghan people can legally work and attend school in the U.S., they often face obstacles with getting stable work or even finding a home to rent because they are not permanent residents and do not have Social Security numbers.

A long history of parole in the US

Typically, the U.S. government has used humanitarian parole to rescue people from conflicts in which U.S. armed forces are involved, like Vietnam and Ukraine.

People who face serious danger because of conflict or other reasons can also enter the U.S. by applying for and receiving refugee status, but it can take more than a year for it to be granted. Humanitarian parole lets the U.S. government act quickly when it wants to help foreigners come to the country during an emergency.

At the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, for example, the U.S. admitted thousands of Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotian migrants fleeing their countries.

As then-President Gerald Ford stated in an address to Congress in 1975, providing humanitarian parole to Vietnamese people who supported the U.S. in its war effort in Vietnam was a “profound moral obligation.” In 1977, Congress passed a law that allowed these refugees to permanently settle in the U.S.

The U.S. also issued humanitarian parole to Hungarian and Cuban refugees who fled communist dictatorships in the 1950s.

More recently, the U.S. granted parole to a group of Haitian orphans following a major earthquake in 2010, and to children from Central America who illegally crossed the border without their parents during the Obama administration.

In 2022, the U.S. government again used humanitarian parole to welcome more than 125,000 Ukrainians fleeing the war in their country.

What the Afghan Adjustment Act would do

While Biden issued temporary humanitarian parole to Afghans in 2021 and renewed it in 2023, only Congress has the power to pass an act that would ensure they can legally stay in the country permanently. Yet, a deadlocked Congress has failed to pass legislation to adjust the status of Afghans.

A proposed bipartisan bill in Congress called the Afghan Adjustment Act would allow Afghan parolees to apply for permanent legal status.

A coalition of refugee advocates and veterans organizations has championed the Afghan Adjustment Act.

Yet, a handful of Republican lawmakers, led by Sen. Chuck Grassley, have opposed the act on national security grounds. They say that vetting procedures for newcomers are not sufficient, which could lead to security risks. Some want a more targeted program that focuses only on Afghans who worked with U.S. troops.

Republican Sen. Tom Cotton has proposed another bill that would significantly reduce a president’s authority to use humanitarian parole for Afghans or anyone else in the future.

An Afghan evacuee living in Charlestown, Mass., in February 2022 shows a photo of himself working in Afghanistan as a translator.
Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images

The election factor

The fate of Afghan parolees will likely be determined by the results of the upcoming election. Should Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris win office, I believe she is likely to renew parole for Afghans for at least two more years, as Biden did in 2023. Congress may be more likely to pass the Afghan Adjustment Act after the election, since it is rare to pass major legislation during an election period.

What Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump might do about Afghans living temporarily in the U.S. is an open question. During Trump’s previous presidential term, his administration focused in part on curbing immigration. This included slashing refugee admissions and making it harder to issue U.S. visas to Afghans and Iraqis who worked with the U.S. military.

On the campaign trail, Trump has promised to renew his travel ban on Muslims and to continue to limit immigration to the U.S.

In the meantime, Afghans who fled the Taliban continue to face uncertainty about their future in the U.S. Läs mer…

On July 25, 2024, Vice President Kamala Harris spoke to the American Federation of Teachers – the first labor union she addressed after announcing her candidacy for president.

Even though she was speaking to a roomful of teachers, Harris didn’t focus on teacher-specific issues. Rather, she spoke about general policies that working people want, such as sick leave and paid family leave. She also spoke about the labor movement more broadly. “When unions are strong, America is strong,” she said.

At the Democratic National Convention in August, Harris’ running mate Tim Walz proudly claimed his identity as a teacher. On Instagram, he described himself as being a “dues-paying, card-carrying member of my teachers union for years.”

Public school teachers are not often talked about as a major force in national politics. They are not wealthy donors. They rarely hold public office. Many congresspeople claim to have been “educators,” but that includes law school professors, school fundraisers and school district superintendents.

Teachers and their unions, however, can be influential in politics – in the U.S. and globally. Walz’s candidacy prompts a reexamining of their role. Whose interests do they represent? Can teachers really speak on behalf of broader communities?

Our view, based on political science research we and others have carried out, is that teachers are one of the most – if not the most – well-organized groups advocating in favor of the economic interests of working people in politics today.

The rise of teachers as political candidates around the world

Tim Walz taught social studies for 20 years at Mankato West High School in Minnesota. When he served in Congress, he was one of only a handful of teachers from public K-12 schools. The overwhelming majority of congresspeople are lawyers and business professionals who are mostly from higher-income backgrounds, and a disproportionate number studied at elite institutions.

Walz’s candidacy as a high school teacher turned high-profile politician has few obvious precedents in the United States. But Walz is far from unique globally.

In many developing democracies, from Colombia to Indonesia and India, teachers are a large group of public sector workers who are organized through powerful labor unions. Around the world, teacher candidates have risen through the ranks politically. In Colombia, for example, the teachers union has 270,000 members, making it the largest union in that country. A number of leaders from that union have moved from the union presidency to the Senate of the republic.

The 2024 book “Mobilizing Teachers” documents the emergence of teachers as a political force in Latin America beginning three decades ago.

Former president of Peru Pedro Castillo may be best remembered for being ousted from office in 2022 after attempting to dissolve Congress. But his origins are notable. He was a humble elementary school teacher and union leader who improbably rose to the presidency in 2021. Similarly in Mexico, national teachers union leader Alfonso Cepeda Salas became a senator for the ruling party in 2024.

Teachers unions aren’t always a force for good governance. In Mexico, they are widely criticized for using corrupt practices to influence politics, such as showing favoritism in promoting teachers aligned with certain parties. In the 1980s, however, teachers mobilized in the streets of Brazil, Chile and Mexico against military dictatorships and authoritarian rule, and Brazilian teachers unions advocated for broader causes such as the right to education and increased spending on public schools.

In the U.S., public K-12 teachers do not usually become high-profile political candidates. However, they emerged as major political actors in other ways in the late 20th century. This was spurred by economic changes such as automation and globalization, which disrupted the work of many unions – such as manufacturing unions – but not teachers. Today, 1 in 5 union members are teachers. And teachers as a whole make up 8% of the college-educated workforce in the United States.

Through their labor unions, teachers in the U.S. are sometimes recruited as political candidates, especially in state and local elections. However, their numbers are few. In 2018, for example, teachers were on the ballot in record numbers but still represented just 3% of candidates.

Teachers and the public interest

Teachers in the U.S. have faced criticism for opposing reforms such as school choice and connecting teacher evaluations to student test scores. Some scholars believe these reforms could improve education quality.

In the U.S., there’s also concern about teachers’ strong influence on school board elections and Democratic Party primaries. Some researchers argue that teachers unions have disproportionate power because “they are actively and purposely engaged in an electoral effort to control their own superiors” – school board members. In other words, unlike private sector workers, teachers unions use their political clout to select their own bosses.

Yet, other scholars have shown that the policies teachers pursue often align with the interests of students. Teachers unions have long argued that better teacher working conditions mean better learning conditions for students, and that’s what they often advocate for.

In some states and cities, there are severe teacher shortages, which some analysts cite to argue that low pay for teachers has made it an unattractive career. These shortages not only affect the quality of education but also reflect the economic concerns of middle-class Americans. Teacher salaries have stagnated, even though a large body of economics research has shown a cause-and-effect relationship between increasing educational spending and better student achievement, especially when funding increases go to teacher salaries.

Over the past 16 years in the U.S., teacher strikes have raised teacher salaries and the salaries of other education workers, such as janitors, bus drivers and administrative staff. Teachers have also highlighted the kinds of school-quality concerns that many parents care about, such as free school meals and hiring more counselors, nurses and psychologists at schools.

The role of teachers in preserving democracy

Public school teachers are uniquely positioned to uphold democratic institutions – a primary concern for many scholars heading into this election. Teachers are deeply embedded in local communities and habitually organize to coordinate political efforts with other local nonprofits and grassroots groups. We believe they’re one of the few middle-class groups still able to push back against the growing power of large corporations, megadonors and media conglomerates. Läs mer…